"School" is in Session!

It's Spring Break for the Public schools here, so this morning we had a little play date with friends of ours (age 7 and 8) who go to school near by.

I took them into our Montessori classroom and told them that they can "play school" with the kids.

One of the girls goes to the black board on the easel and writes out the "Schedule"- Reading, writing, snack time, math and art. She then tells my kids to all take their seats. They looked a bit confused and wondered why they were being told to sit down as usually, they walk into class and go straight to a shelf and pick out an activity to do. But they sat down anyways.

The "teacher" then gave them each a piece of paper and wrote down the word CAT on each paper and told each of them to draw a cat. My big guy squiggled some random squiggle (he is not into drawing), my daughter gathered her crayons and started working carefully on her master piece, and my 3 year old took the crayons and threw them across the room and burst out laughing...

"Teacher" told him he has to sit in timeout for acting rude. He ended up running out of the classroom and into the playroom and quit "school" (he usually LOVES being in the classroom).

She then said time was up and it was now time for writing. My daughter got upset since she wasn't done and wanted to finish her picture. My big guy said he was done sitting and was ready for a snack, to which "teacher" said he had to wait for snack time. (In a Montessori classroom, there is a place in the classroom with a table and chair and some snacks that the kids can prepare and eat whenever they wish. One would think this would be the most popular place in the classroom, but the kids really only go there when they want a snack.)

Now let me just say that these 2 little girls are delightful adorable sweethearts who come over all the time, and they were just mimicking what they do at school. But witnessing my kids in a standard school environment really made me appreciate a) the fact that I homeschool them and don't have anyone else but me and my hubby disciplining them and b) that we follow the Montessori method, giving them the freedom to learn what they love for as long as they wish.

Well, needless to say, "school" didn't last too long as my kids were not interested in being TOLD what to do and for how long to do it and so it quickly turned to outside play and games for the rest of the morning... but its nice to have these little eye openers once in a while~

Wishing all a great Shabbos,